1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system, job processing method, and storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the commercial printing industry, publications are issued through various work steps. These work steps include a document entry, document design, layout editing, comprehensive layout (presentation by printing), proofreading (layout correction and color correction), proof (proof print), block copy preparation, printing, post-process, and shipping.
The commercial printing industry often uses an offset reproduction printing press in the printing step, and the block copy preparation step is inevitable. However, once the block copy is prepared, it is difficult and disadvantageous in terms of cost to correct the block copy. In block copy preparation, therefore, careful proofreading (i.e., careful layout check and color confirmation) is indispensable. Some period of time is generally taken until publication is complete.
In the commercial printing industry, most of apparatuses used in respective work steps are bulky and expensive. In addition, work with these apparatuses requires expert knowledge, and know-how of experts is indispensable. Against the commercial printing industry, a so-called POD (Print On Demand) market is about to appear with the advent of high-speed and high-quality electrophotographic and inkjet printing apparatuses.
The POD market appears to replace large-scale printing presses and printing methods so as to deal with jobs of relatively small lots within a short period without using any bulky apparatus or system. In the POD market, digital printing using electronic data can be implemented to provide printing services and the like by making the best of printing apparatuses such as a digital copying machine and digital multifunction peripheral.
Devices in the POD market advance digitization more than in the conventional commercial printing industry, and management and control using computers has become widespread. In the POD market, a printed material can be issued within a short period. As another advantage, the POD market does not require any know-how of the operator. Recent devices in the POD market are achieving almost the same image quality of printed materials as the level of the commercial printing industry.
Patent references 1 and 2 disclose image forming systems which optimize scheduling in consideration of an efficient work order, the order of other jobs, and the like. Office-equipment makers and the like are studying these image forming systems for entry into a new POD market. Particularly in recent days, printing apparatuses and printing systems have been examined which suit not only the office environment but also the POD environment expected to have cases of use and needs different from those in the office environment. In the printing environment in the POD market, how to increase the productivity of the printing system is an important consideration. It is also important to provide a printing system that is convenient to the operator while maintaining high productivity.
[Patent Reference 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-310746
[Patent Reference 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-310747
However, there is room for further study in commercializing a printing system suitable to even the POD environment. It should be noted that there are objects rendered even outside an area finally cut by a finisher in the POD environment. Such objects are a printer's mark, color bar, bleed, page information, and the like. These objects are necessary when cutting sheets by an offline or near-line finisher, but lead to an unnecessary rendering process when cutting sheets by an inline finisher. A minimum bleed is necessary, but an excessive bleed results in an unnecessary rendering process. More specifically, no object need be printed for an inline type printing system because apparatuses are electrically connected to each other and can electrically transfer necessary information to a succeeding apparatus. If an unnecessary rendering process is done for all printed materials, toner consumption reduces the profits of an office-equipment distributor or printing company. An unnecessary RIP process for print data may degrade RIP performance, and large-size image data after RIP may occupy extra storage space.